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by sydinas (orphan_account)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Character Death, M/M, gratuitous use of colons, my english teacher would hate me for the sheer amount of never-ending sentences i use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21901876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sydinas
Summary: Here's the thing: Richie Tozier is dying, and Eddie Kaspbrak can feel it everywhere—in his chest, in his bones; it is running through his bloodstream, it is contaminating every living cell that resides in his body.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





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**Author's Note:**

> i am on a roll with fics that aren't ones that i should probably update because it's been almost two months
> 
> anyway this is a fic i first wrote quite a while ago but i recently found it in a random google doc so i'm rewriting it and (re?)publishing it. i don't know what i was thinking when i thought of this or why i decided to do this to myself
> 
> also yeah i sorta went crazy with the colons. seriously. take a shot every time i use one

The sun is setting almost as slowly as he is breathing.

Eddie Kaspbrak can see it in the way that Richie Tozier's chest rises and falls: just the same as how the sun rises and sets in the morning and in the evening.

Here's the thing: unlike the sun, Richie Tozier will not resurface once he has sunken below the horizon. Here's the thing: Richie Tozier is dying, and Eddie Kaspbrak can feel it everywhere—in his chest, in his bones; it is running through his bloodstream, it is contaminating every living cell that resides in his body.

Perhaps, if this moment wasn't so sad—if it wasn't akin to a Polaroid picture left discarded at the bottom of a dirty bag: stained, crumpled, muddied—Eddie might want to capture the way the sky shifts itself: reds and purples and pinks shaping themselves in a way he didn't think was possible, like a watercolour painting come to life. As it is, the moment is so far removed from sad that it's far past sadness: it's already turned to grief. Eddie can barely comprehend when it begun, and is unable to even begin to think about when it will end.

There is a hazy summer breeze, casting waves of temporary heat over him and Richie—Richie: all gangly limbs with a mouth that that runs as fast as the Kenduskeag when it's just rained; Richie, whose life is slowly slipping away with every single second that passes by; Richie, who Eddie has undeniably, unmistakably, and irrevocably fallen in love with.

All the moments with Richie flash before Eddie's eyes right then: meeting him—at the ripe age of five in the school playground where Eddie could run around and not get into trouble with his mother—laughing with him—at seven, at nine, at eleven, with Stan and Bill as well: the four of them, forever and always—kissing him—first at fourteen, short and sweet, and later again at seventeen, indefinitely and hoping it would last an eternity.

It's all _Richie, Richie, Richie:_ a mantra running through his head, a chant telling him not to give up on Richie—Richie who is beautiful and brave and strong; Richie who makes stupid and often unfunny jokes just to see the bright smiles on his friends' faces because of how horrifically bad they are; Richie who understands Eddie the way no one else ever has before. It has always been Richie: raven-black hair and messy curls; long, fluttering eyelashes hidden behind forever-horrible glasses; freckle-dusted cheekbones that look as if they've been carved out of stone, crafted by a god.

Eddie has fought for so long for the chance to be with Richie rather than without him, harder than he's ever fought for anything before. He's faced all the things thrown their way: the hardships, the scrutiny, the glares and the sneers, the words and the punches, the whispers of _look, it's that Kaspbrak boy. You've heard about him, right?_ and _Poor Sonia. Imagine raising a boy and they end up turning out like_ that.

He's faced all of that, and yet—and yet it's all slipping away right in front of him, falling out of his grasp faster than he can run to catch it. And what is that if not a giant _fuck you_ from the universe, a middle finger shoved right in their faces? The universe has never had a voice, but if it did, Eddie thinks this is what it would say (to them, at least): _it's not worth fighting for things you want; they'll only get ripped away from you far too soon._

The only thing they've ever wanted to do, the one and only thing they've ever dared to ask to have for themselves, is this: time, and to take it moment by moment, second by second, to not have to worry about the future or the past—even though there's an imprint left behind of things impossible to be forgotten from the summer of 1989: a clown; blood coating a bathroom; a yellow jacket and a baseball bat and all their love.

And, still, despite this, despite all the begging and the pleading and the praying—(unnecessary and unneeded, clearly, because here's a truth: the universe doesn't listen)—time is flowing faster than it ever has in their whole goddamned lives. There's something strange about Derry and the way time works in it: it has slowed as the years have gone by, seconds turning into minutes and minutes turning into hours and hours turning into days, until the difference between them is indistinguishable. Derry may seem normal, may seem just the same as any place in small town America, but the thing is, Derry is this: stuck between heaven and hell, between good and evil, purgatory in its own, strange way. Derry is stuck in its own little bubble, where the natural laws of the universe don't apply. It drags people down, and it's almost impossible to escape the tight grip on you that it gains hold of from the years you spend there, a tight grip that only time could have—so much so that the adults have become blinded by it, so much so that the teenagers are on their way to that as well. No one ever escapes Derry, and, in return, no one enters.

All they've ever wanted to do is take their time, but, in this moment, there is only one truth: now that that same sense of time is finally losing its grip, Eddie finds that he doesn't want it to. He doesn't want it to, and he'll take all the repercussions for that if he has to, because all he wants to do is spend one more goddamn moment with Richie, even if it's only a second, and even if that second consists of clutching Richie's hand and feeling his slowing heartbeat pulsate beneath his fingers.

And then: Richie takes a deep breath in, and Eddie feels his heart leap to his throat. He thinks, for a split second, that that's a sign of Richie's life returning to him, a gift from the universe because it never gave them one before. But that's a feverish, hopeful thought, destined to never be true, and the real thought occurs to him a moment later: Eddie feels that Richie may have just sucked all of the air that the universe has ever possessed into his own lungs—the gateway to his heart, and the blood the key.

The blood courses through his limp, almost lifeless, body. And Eddie—forever hurting Eddie, forever having reminders of bad times past, of a mother who's far too controlling for her own good—has tried, _so_ goddamn hard, to repair both their hearts, back to the way they were once, and Richie has as well. They've been through hell and back—well, actually, Derry is hell enough on its own, but the fact still stands: for two boys so young, they've had too many a war wreaked on their hearts.

With Richie's pulse rate decreasing by a minute amount every second, Eddie thinks: _there's no point lying to myself anymore._ And the truth that he knows deep down is this: soon enough, Richie's body will reach the point where there is no point in his heart beating for it anymore. But, right now, it somehow still manages to find the strength to pump blood to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his toes, to every crack and crevice and every corner and cranny.

And, Christ, here's an idea, here's a tragedy: maybe, just maybe, blood travels the furthest and the fastest it's ever capable of travelling when the body knows it's in its final stages. Maybe, just maybe, it's attempting to keep you alive for a little longer—(sometimes maybe longer than needs be)—allowing you a little more time to fully appreciate the world as you take your last breaths—even if that world seems godforsaken and awful.

The thing is, Richie and Eddie have always been connected by pain: by a broken arm, by a punch to the gut at the hands of Henry Bowers, by a similar feeling hit to the heart from everyone else around them. Now, they're connected by pain more than ever; Eddie can feel every scrape, and every cut, and every bruise that Richie has collected over the past seventeen years of his life. It blooms through his body, sets it on fire, in a less-than-pleasing way. And it's unbearable. It's unbeatable. It burns, from the inside out, and Eddie can't disconnect where it begins from where it ends.

As Richie's grip on his hand grows ever looser, Eddie wishes—not for Richie to be perfectly alive and breathing once more, because he knows that that won't happen; not now, not ever—but instead for this: for Richie to know that, to him, and to the rest of the Losers as well, he isn't small and insignificant, not just a tiny vessel in the universe that ultimately won't make a difference to anything at all; for Richie to know that, even long after he's gone, the people who he sparked fires in the heart of—at first a burning ember, now a raging forest fire—will remember him. Long after he's gone, Eddie will make sure to avenge the death that Richie was so wrongfully granted with. He'll make sure of it with all that he has, he'll do it every second of every day of his meagre life—if he gets the chance, if that's what it all boils down to. Eddie wishes: wishes that Richie understood that his laughter and his stupid jokes were the only things that could make Eddie's heart run laps around his chest and bounce off his ribs hard enough to break them. Eddie wishes and wishes and wishes, but none of it ever quite happens.

Eddie is losing him—slowly but also all of a sudden—and he knows it, all the way to the bottom of his heart. Richie Tozier's pulse has dropped to almost a standstill, barely there, and Eddie has no doubt that—if you weren't looking for the faintest semblance of it, if not for the way his chest moves up in slow, shallow motions, if not for the ragged breathing that accompanies it—then he would almost certainly be presumed dead. Red is staining his clothes and his hands, and surrounds both him and Eddie in a pool of blood: the only physical tether that binds them together still.

And here's another, final one of Eddie's wishes: he wishes that he could find a way to get Richie to hold on for just a moment longer (and also wishes that this didn't happen to Richie in the first place, but that's an entirely different matter), but he knows that would only prolong Richie's suffering, and even the mere _thought_ of that sends Eddie into a downward spiral that's hard to pull himself out of.

"Eds," Richie croaks out, voice low and raspy and only further proof that he's hurting.

Eddie wants to sob, wants to scream, wants to fall to his knees and raise his eyes to the sky and beg whatever unforgiving god is up there to give Richie back to him, all in one piece. He does none of that. Instead, he chokes out, ignoring the small sob that forces its way forward: "Don't call me that."

"Okay," Richie says, and then smiles, buck teeth and all. And then: "Eds."

And Eddie can't help but smile as well, even through the pain and the hurt and the heartbreak. "I love you," he whispers, and it feels less like a confession and more like a promise to himself to never forget what true love really feels like.

Richie's eyes widen—even though he must know it by now, must know from the times he's caught Eddie staring at him, must've seen the look in Eddie's eyes when he did so—and then whispers back, "I love you too," and then his eyes flutter closed.

Eddie's heart drops to the pit of his stomach, and the smile on his face falls. Richie: gone, in an instant, as quick as one jackrabbit heartbeat in Eddie's chest. And there's a strange feeling there as well, something that he doesn't quite recognise: his life flashing before his eyes, like a film on rewind, but he knows it's not like dying, even though it sort of feels like he is. It's... it's a VHS playing backwards, getting quicker and quicker by the second, and one singular thought occurs to him in that moment: Derry is a heartbreaker, capable of making you forget everything you've ever known, everything you've ever managed to find some sort of solace in, and now Eddie can't help but feel he's missing something that was once more important to him than anything else, but there's nothing that he can even _begin_ to think of that might make him feel that way.

He looks down at the body lying lifeless in front of him for a good few seconds, and he feels no sort of connection—in any way, shape, or form—to the messy curls adorning their head, nor to the unblinking brown eyes that he seems to remember the exact shade of but can't quite place to a person.

When he looks away, he realises the moon is now shining brighter than anything else. When he looks back, he finds himself completely and utterly alone, kneeling in a pool of someone else's blood with only the stars to accompany him.


End file.
